Election Drama Tests Americans' Patience

Nov. 15 -- As deadlines and court rulings come and go in Florida, Americans’ patience wears ever thinner.

Political analysts say Americans waiting to find out who their next president will be have so far waited patiently because they understand that questions remain over the legitimacy of some ballots.

“The public’s sense of fairness is one of the things that drives people in this country,” said Tom Patterson, acting director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. “There’s still enough ambiguity that they haven’t come down hard yet.”

Patterson, who runs the Vanishing Voter Project, a study of public participation in the 2000 election campaign, said if the public feels the votes have been counted fairly and one party keeps pushing the issue into the courts, that party will lose public support.

Take 55-year-old Carolyn Gemake of Long Island, for instance. “I would like this to be over with,” Gemake said. “They need to finish the hand count and get the results from the overseas ballots and come out with a result. This should not go to the courts.”

On Saturday, barring any legal challenges, Florida is to finalize its vote count after tallying absentee ballots from overseas. Florida, with its 25 electoral votes, could determine whether Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who is currently ahead in the official state tally, or Vice President Al Gore wins the national election.

Even some supporters of Gore — who is being accused by Bush’s campaign staff of prolonging the election with repeated legal challenges and recounts — are beginning to call for an end to it all.

“It think this is ridiculous,” said Jessica Jimenez, a 21-year-old Gore supporter from Manhattan. “ At least by the end of this week they should pick someone so we can have a president.”

Other Americans insist there has already been a fair count of the votes.